Reviews RALP313
Mighty props to Rune Grammofon for resurrecting an essential slab of European free jazz. The label will issue Tom Prehn Quartet's incendiary Axiom album on vinyl for the very first time, making it available in a limited edition of 500. Recorded in Copenhagen in October 1963 this rare set was originally scheduled for release on the Sonet label, who bafflingly ditched it on a proto-hipster tip, deeming the tumultuous sounds already too dated. Though US imprint Corbett vs Dempsey saw sense to exhume Axiom on CD last year, this historic material, quite possibly Europe's first ever free jazz record, deserves its waxy incarnation. Undoubtedly inspired by the full-frontal frenzies being cultivated in New York during the late 1950s and early 1960s by the likes of Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor, these young Danish musicians, most of them barely into their twenties, were at the uncompromising vanguard of European sonic experimentalism, preceding the more lauded opening salvos of such Ieftfield luminaries as Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Peter Brötzmann.
Jazzwise (UK)
An album can’t be the holy grail of one or another genre if nobody knows about it, but the Danish pianist Tom Prehn still deserves credit for offering one of the most gripping and original iterations of free-jazz—anywhere—with his first album, Axiom. It was cut in October 1963 for Sonet Records, but by the time the test pressings were approved and production impending, the leader pulled the plug. With only two finished copies in circulation, it is one of the rarest free-jazz albums in the world. In 2015 the Chicago label Corbett vs. Dempsey released the album on CD, but it’s finally available in the format for which it was first destined, thanks to Rune Grammofon. Collectively, over the course of two sidelong pieces, the group—with tenor saxophonist Frits Krogh, bassist Poul Ehlers and drummer Finn Slumstrup—experiments with unmetered time, shifting harmony and a muscular, surging abstraction of hard-bop phraseology, all accomplished with a preternatural rapport.
Downbeat (US)
Maybe he'd seen Cecil Taylor playing with Albert Ayler at Copenhagen's Cafe Montmartre in late 1962, or perhaps it was just from hearing Ornette Coleman's The Shape Of Jazz To Come a few years earlier. Whatever the spark, in October 1963, barely into his twenties, Danish pianist Tom Prehn took an equally fresh-faced drummer, bassist and tenor sax player into the Copenhagen studios of the Sonet label to record two sides of urgent, non-metrical free jazz. 3/5.
Mojo (UK)
The fact that only two complete original copies of the album survived makes this one of the rarest jazz albums bar none and listening to the unrelentingly intense mood of its contents makes it all the harder to fathom the logic behind Sonet´s bizarre business decision some 53 years ago. 4/5.
Shindig (UK)
Den antagelig første europeiske frijazzutgivelsen, "Axiom" av danske Tom Prehn Quartet, er nå utgitt på LP for første gang, i begrenset opplag og med et herlig omslag. Musikken er ivrig og full av futt, to lange spor innspilt i Køben i oktober 1963, men den ble ikke ordentlig utgitt før i fjor, siden Sonet ikke ville gi den ut den gang. Kun to-tre promoer har vært i sirkulasjon og sakte bygget opp renommeet i samlerkretser. For virkelig god musikk er det heldigvis alltid en tid - en gang.
Dagens Næringsliv (NO)
Det er et bemerkelsesverdig sprang fra tradjazz til den frie improvisasjonen vi finner på kuttene "Axiom I" og "Axiom sitt musi-kalske prosjekt synes det som om Prehn har vært sterkt påvirket av det som skjedde rundt jazzklubben Jazzhus Montmartre i Køben-havn. I løpet av 1963 hadde klubben blant annet besøk av Cecil Taylor, Albert Auler, New York Contemporary Five med Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, John Tchical, og det ble gjort legendariske plateinnspillinger her med stor betydning for utviklingen av den europeiske frijazzen. I tillegg kom Prehn fra en musik-erfamilie orientert omkring det moderne og det nye innenfor ulike sjongere. Axiom er musikkhistorisk sett et meget viktig bidrag til jazzen. Utgivelsen står som en egen kategori i sin samtid, en forløper forførete generasjon europeisk frijazz.
Jazznytt (NO)